This guide will aid you in playing Shadow Codex 2, a word game/RPG mash-up.

Contact

If you have a question, bug report, or comment, please e-mail me at tblabonne@gmail.com.

Character Attributes and Stats

Level - each level-up increases your total HP and MP.  Earn XP (experience) to increase your level.  Each level progressively requires more XP to level-up over time.

ATT - Attack stat - measures how strong you are in combat for attacks.  Weapons can boost this stat.

DEF - Defense stat - measures how you can defend against weapon attacks in combat.  Armor can boost this stat.

INT - Intelligence stat - measures how fast mana regenerates in combat.  Accessories and other magical equipment can boost this stat.

LCK - Luck stat - measures how likely critical hits, gold, bombs, and multiplier gems appear.  Accessories can boost this stat.

Gold - collect gold by slaying monsters, stealing gold from opponents, collecting it from gold letter tiles, endurance challenges, selling items, or buy from the App Store.  Gold can be used to buy new equipment and items from the Shop.

Equipment

You can equip one Weapon, one piece of Armor, and one Accessory at any time from the Inventory screen.  Each can boost particular stats or add a special ability.  For example, some weapons increase chance of critical hit on top of your base LCK stat.  Others can increase mana, give a chance of a free attack, or increase chances of starting combat.

Weapons cost a specific amount of AP (action points) to gain an attack in combat.  Usually the stronger two-handed weapons require more AP to use but are more destructive.  Some weapons are also double-strike capable which can use two attacks at once.  These can lead to high critical attacks if you have high LCK.  Some weapons can also be enchanted which means they deliver more damage to enemies that are vulnerable to that specific effect.  Fire, Electricity, Holy, and Poison are the echantments available.

Items

You can craft items or get them from enemy drops.  Items are either consumable (can be used in combat) or non-consumable.  Non-comsumable items are items that aid you in crafting or are things to collect or to trade.  Consumable items can be used in combat to replenish health, mana, or cure some condition.  Once a consumable item is used, it is removed from your inventory forever, even if the battle is lost.

Skills

Skills are special abilities that can be used in combat if you have enough MP.  They can cause damage to opponents, provide hints on the puzzle board, manipulate the puzzle board, or heal.

Skills cost a specific amount of MP to use and may have a recharge time.  Recharge time refers to a number of your turns that must pass before the skill will be available to cast again.  Some equipment can reduce the cost of certain skills, but only if that equipment is equipped.

Skills are learned by paying gold to a Trainer in the Train menu from the map.  Each trainer has a specialty so be sure to check them all out.  Skills require a minimum character level to be used.

You may un-equip a Skill if it is no longer useful to you from the Inventory screen.  This is no limit to how many skills you can equip at one time.

Storehouse

All of the items and equipment you collect is stored in your Storehouse.  This store has a limit to the quantity it can hold.  You can increase the capacity of the storehouse when you collect enough raw wood and stone as required to level-up.  Use the Foraging Challenges to find raw wood and stone.  Wood and stone are not stored in the Storehouse and do not count against the capacity limit.  If your storehouse is too full, you can either pay a small gold fee to rent space or you will have to abandon items you collected.

Each item takes up a specific amount of space and certain items like ore, metal equipment, and ingots take up more space than lighter, smaller objects like herbs or potions.

Combat

You will spend most of your time in the game fighting enemies in turn-based combat that uses word spelling on a puzzle board of random letters.  On each turn you can do one of the following:

1.  Spell a word - search for a word on the game board and then spell it out.  You can only select letters that are adjacent to the previously selected letter. You earn Action Points (AP) that are used to gain weapon attacks.  The currently equipped weapon dictates how much AP you need to gain an attack.  Stronger weapons require more AP and thus, better word spelling capability.  

If you score +12 AP or higher on a single word (also includes bombs, score multipliers, and the results of certain skill use), you will receive an extra turn.  If you spell words that are longer than 5 letters, you will get a little MP bonus as well.  Higher scoring words can be made by using rarer letters whenever possible.

2.  Attack - if you have a weapon attack banked, you can choose to use it.  Tap the Weapon icon on your equipment panel to use it.  There's a chance (based on your LCK stat) that you will deal a CRITICAL hit which improves the weapon strike by 50%.  Some equipment can increase this chance as well.

3.  Use a Skill - open the skills menu and if you have skills equipped, you can select one to use if it is not recharging.  Some skills use up a turn while others may not.

4.  Use an Item - open the Items menu and pick an item to use if you need healing for health or mana.  You can also use condition curing items too.  Once an item is used, it is gone forever.  Items can be obtained from enemy drops or through crafting.  Some items can be consumed raw but are better suited to be used to craft a recipe that can heal you more effectively.  Watch out for poisoned or rotten items - they can hurt you rather than heal.

Special Tiles

In combat, you will see several special icons on tiles that appear randomly based on your LCK stat (or your opponent's):

1. Gem Multiplier - this causes any word spelled with this tile to receive double the AP!  These are powerful tiles to use.  Using two or more multipliers will not have any different effect.

2. Gold - spelling a word with this tile will give you +5 gold.  This gold is only awarded if you win the battle.

3. Sneak Attack - the sword icon will cause a special sneak attack against your opponent if you spell a word using this letter.

4. Bomb - the bomb icon will cause some of the surrounding letters to blow up and you will receive all of their AP points.  If you spell a high-scoring, complex word using a bomb, the bomb's effect will be even greater!

Conditions

You may cast spells or receive spell casts that cause a specific condition such as poisoning.

1. Poison Effect - you will receive -3 HP per turn when afflicted.  Use anti-venom items to cure.

2. Curse Effect - your MP will be stunted on each turn when afflicted.  Use anti-curse spells and items to cure.

3. Fear Effect - when you are afraid, you cannot use your primary weapon when afflicted.  Use wine item to cure.

4. Frozen Effect - when you are frozen, you cannot use your spells.  Use soup item to cure.

There are also conditions spells can cast on individual tiles.  If you are the victim of these casts, these tiles need to be cleared from the board or they will have a negative effect on you each turn.  They do not affect the caster, however, and disappear on their turn.  Fire tiles can cause -2 HP per tile per turn.  Curse tiles can cause -5 MP per tile per turn.  Plague tiles cause -2 HP and can also spread to other tiles on the beginning of each turn.  Spell words to clear the tiles or use a skill that clears them out.

There may be other conditions that occur from various skill uses.  You can see current conditions applied to you by tapping & holding on your character portrait in combat.

Map

The map is divided into Areas each with a unique set of challenges and monsters to face.  Tap on enemy nodes to fight them.  Enemies can usually be fought any number of times to gain more XP but will decrease in XP given as you level-up.  

The map also has Endurance challenge nodes, Forages, doors, and loot boxes.  Loot boxes contain useful goodies and gold!

If you encounter a locked door, try finding a key in a loot box or from a nearby enemy drop.

Endurance Challenges

In these challenges, you must quickly spell as many words as you can before the clock runs out!  Every time you gain the required score, you will pass a "gate".  If you pass enough gates, you will win the challenge.

Look for multiplier gems to get high scores.  Also, if you spell longer words you will be rewarded with a little extra time bonus!

Upon victory, you will be rewarded with extra gold and XP!

Foraging

To find raw materials and resources for use in crafting, try a Forage challenge from the map.  Some areas of the map have these challenges available and each contains different materials to find.  Some materials are rarer and may take multiple tries to find.  Spell words quickly and use bombs to clear out tiles to find new items.  If you let too many turns pass, the items will disappear.  Spell words worth 10 points or more to gain extra time on the clock.  Foraging can be repeated as many times as you'd like.

Crafting

From the Forge menu, you can access the Crafting area.  Here, you can select things to craft such as Equipment (Weapons, Armor), Potions, Food, and Resources like Iron Ingots.  Each item has a specific set of crafting requirements, which may also include gold.

For equipment, each item lists how it will impact your current stats (this is the difference applied to your current stats).  

Crafting items takes time and you can skip the wait time by paying a small fee of gold if you choose.  Some weapons and armor can take a long time to craft.  You may only craft one item at a time.

Use the Forage challenge to gain raw materials to craft with.  Some items will require other crafted items to combine to make new items.  In general, you'll want to transform raw foods into more useful cooked foods.  In some cases, such as meat, consuming raw is not possible and it must be cooked.

Some crafting will require tools.  Use the Shop to locate and purchase these tools.

Training

Learning Skills is essential to effectively progressing in combat.  Go to the Train menu and select a Trainer to talk with.  They will show you their available skills and you can then purchase training in that skill.  Once learned, it is available in combat if equipped.  

Certain skills will require more gold if they are more effective and, in general, require a higher character level.  Training takes time and you may only learn one new skill at a time.

Shop

From the map, select the Shop menu item and you'll be able to purchase new equipment and resources/parts necessary for crafting.  The Shop carries select items that are hard-to-find or ones that cannot be crafted.  Be sure to check out each type of item.  Each item is available for a specific price of in-game gold currency.

There are also offers available for packs and gold that you can choose to purchase with real-world currency.

Be sure to sell items you no longer want to gain more gold!  You can sell-back to the Shop from the Inventory menu.

Privacy

In short, no personally identifiable information is collected by this app.  Crash reports and diagnostics are sent completely anonymously.  Your device's advertising ID is used, however, to track ads serving but contains no PII.

If you'd like to read the entire policy, please go here.